The discussion in that thread is about corporal punishment and whether teachers should be allowed to use it.
I have a different take. The teacher who wrote the article referenced in that thread mentioned several times that most students in the inner city school wanted to learn but the disruptions of the few stopped them from being able to learn and the teachers to teach. He mentioned that when the troublemakers were not in the classroom, the atmosphere changed dramtically and teaching/learning was accomplished.
My debate is this:
Instead of corporal punishment, why not abandon the philosophy of ‘every kid gets an education’. I know this runs counter to the fiber of our collective American beings but it might be for the best to ‘give up’ on the few.
This sounds mean and callous but what about the vast majority of children that want to learn? By keeping this king, generous, warm fuzzy philosophy of not giving up on children, we are depriving many children of what they need…an education.
You could sugar-coat it by setting up schools for these chidren so that all the trouble makers are together bothering each other but it is still somewhat the same, IMO.
Thoughts? Good idea, stupid as can be, or dangerous?
Kicking out troublemakers will result in a bunch of troublemakers on the street with nothing to do during the day. This seems like inviting trouble.
Maybe it would help to stop seeing them as ‘troublemakers’ and see them as kids who for some reason are inspired to sabotage their own life chances by causing trouble. Then we may try to (God forbid) get them some help, find out why they are causing trouble (‘troublemakers’ are generally not happy, well-adjusted kids) and address the problem that way.
Granted, the classroom where other kids want to learn about math or auto mechanics may not be the place for this, but this is a limitation of the school system, funding, political priorities etc.
Giving up on them and expelling them (or relegating them to a ‘detention centre school’) will solve your immediate problem of classroom disruption, but create other ones: kids labelled ‘troublemakers’ who will never again have the chance to be otherwise; a school full of ‘troublemakers’ that no one wants to go teach at, and so on …
Universal education is based on the idea that society benefits from having a well-educated populace. Even trouble-making students grow up to become adults who need to live in society productively. If only educated people get jobs, then those without education will be unemployed and unproductive. They will be homeless. They will resort to crime. They will tax the welfare system. These things negatively affect society.
Also, I don’t believe the propensity for trouble is a permanent condition, especially in childhood. The kid sent to the principal’s office in the fifth grade may turn out to be the president of the National Honor’s society in the eleventh. Now, if the kid is still a problem by the time he reaches high school, they can drop out if they want. And I personally have no problems with a school system permanently expelling them if they still don’t have their act together by then.
Alternative education is where many bad-acting kids end up. I’m sure many success stories have come from alternative ed, illustrating the value of educating at-risk people. Maybe alternative education should be expanded or revamped in some way so that disruptive students can be routed there either short-term or long-term with more ease. But I don’t think absolute refusal of educate to certain kids would be a good idea.
What about tomorrow then? How many consecutive days can this happen? Sounds much like giving up.
Better than them disrupting the students that wish to learn? Remember by keeping them in school, they are depriving many other student of an education and opportunity.
Agreed. However maybe this should be divorced from education especially since it interferes so much?
This is why I insinuated that special schools may be equivalent to giving up on them. However, you lose these kids educationally but gain many more. Remember the teacher said most students actually wanted to learn but were deprived because of these troublemakers.
Is it worth depriving the many of an education so as to try with the few?
True. However, how many children lost their opportunity for education in order to have a few of the few succeed?
I don’t think I really disagree with you, andymurph64. It’s just that you seem to see only two alternatives (let troublemakers stay in school vs kick 'em out) and I see a third, which you cannot be faulted for ignoring because that’s the way school systems seem to be structured.
The Third Way: make EVERY kid’s well-being a priority. It is not possible for a teacher to meet the needs of thirty kids at once: some will be bored because the subject is too easy, some will need extra help because it’s too hard, some will have trouble with English, some will be learning disabled, some will be having family troubles, some will have ADHD, and so on. All are potential troublemakers, none deserve to be expelled because of it, and all deserve help.
The school boards where I’m from are very strapped for cash, and if a kid is causing trouble there’s no alternative, really, then to chuck them out, since there’s no staff around to help them. But ideally (and yes, in the past I have been accused of being too idealistic) we should be able to help all these kids and make them all into productive members of society.
Some people act out and cause trouble because they were abused or come from a bad home situation…then again some people are just jerks.
I’m a big proponent of splitting classes up into “tracks” by academic ability and effort. You have your AP classes. There are your general classes. And finally you have what we called in my high school, the “bong” classes. Of course, many people are against this kind of system because the underperformers might feel bad:(
10% of the students should not bring down the other 90%. There are too many students and not enough teachers to give special attention to every trouble maker as if it was an after school special. As long as a kid is willing to learn, great. Whatever help is possible should be made available. If they have a legitimate learning disability, they should also recieve some kind of help. If a kid is violent, dangerous, or otherwise continuously disruptive just because he is an asshole then they should be removed until they are ready to learn.
Here is a little lesson in life that kids need to learn: No one gives a shit about your problems when you are an adult. Tired? hungover? problem with the wife? So what. The boss doesn’t want to hear your excuses. I realize some people have problems but I’m sick of hearing about all the excuses and mitigating circumstances people have for underperforming.
Remember, society needs ditchdiggers as well as doctors.
And many of us are leary of such a system because it is self-perpetuating, effectively branding a kid as “underachiever” so that he never will achieve.
I was actually in one such class all the way back in the 1950s. Sister Charles Loretta organized the class into three groups based on “performance.” I was originally placed in the bottom group and my grades stunk. My mom came in and raised hell and I got moved to the middle group, and my grades improved dramatically. The kids in the bottom tier all finished the year with horrible grades, the kids in the top tier all finished the year with honors.
The next year, Sister Grace Marian did not organize the kids according to “performance,” but simply taught the class. I got honors every quarter (including top honors for the last two quarters) and two of the other kids from the lowest tier the previous year also finished with honors.
Pure anecdote, but I’ve seen studies indicating that setting tiers also sets expectations–and that most kids respond directly to expectations.
Doesn’t the tier-system already exist in many, if not most schools? I know my schools, from 7th grade on up, had the general classes, the honors classes, and the remedial classes. Prior to the 7th, there was just a general advanced program, where gifted students were taken out of classes on a regular basis so as to study advanced material.
If we take this, and tune it so that remedial classes are only for the really bad students, and honors classes are only for the really gifted, that would seem to work fairly well. Most kids would be in the middle, with standard expectations. The problem kids would be effectively removed from the system, and the brilliant kids can go develop their super-intelligent psychic abilities, or whatever. Further, by keeping the problem kids in the same school, it would be easier to transfer them back to regular studies should they show promise. And if they never do - hey, at least they’re not disrupting the other kids.
As far as the conundrum of self-perpetuating expectations, I think this is going to happen whether we separate the kids or not. The kid who always gets F’s is going to tend to stick to that path whether or not he’s around the kids getting C’s. Admittedly, removing the kid may exacerbate the problem, but I think that may be a small price to pay if it leads to 20 other kids being able to learn to read and 'rite and 'rithmatize.
Jeff
I had an experience similar to tomndebb’s. Although I can understand the need for accelerated classes and remedial classes, tracking can seriously fuck up lives.
In this ideal system where we reward happy achieving kids with an education, what happens to the brilliant disruptive misfits? It’s possible to be very, very smart and very, very disruptive in a classroom.
I’ve pulled my kid from school because he was learning nothing and his behaviour was going downhill as well as his self esteem. I saw nothing to be gained for him or the other students if he were left there. But I would be deeply, deeply grateful if someone came up with a system whereby kids like mine are not forced into homeschooling or special ed units.
I find the concept of giving up on kids very early in life to be contemptible or holding children to the same standard as adults. Holding children to high achievable standards is a good thing though and it is one thing that tracked education doesn’t offer for all children.
An interesting question. What to do with the straight A student who disrupts the other students?
I guess send him down to a lower track. I’d rather see a mediocre student who tries hard in an AP class than some jerkoff.
I really don’t know all the answers. It seems to me that more and more people are taking the attitude of “we can’t control our kids”. Seems ridiculous to me that someone, as a parent, would be unable to provide a measure of control over someone who is dependent on them for their food, clothing, even the very house they live in.
Cowgirl, I admire your idealism. And I do believe in finding someway to educate every child.)
Every teacher knows that some teachers will have problems with one student and another teacher will have no problems at all with the same student. It would be a shame to remove that student from all classes.
Although grouping students according to their abilities may be distasteful to some for very good reasons, it is one of the solutions that does seem to work to a point. Teachers are spread too thin as it is and cannot give the students in mixed classes the individualization they need.
But there are some students who just cannot be allowed to remain in a regular classroom. For most of those students, I do recommend a separate school with very small classes. Give those teachers significant “combat pay.” And always leave a door open back to the regular classroom if the student shapes up.
In the long run I am in favor of a total revamping of public education. But it is not going to happen anytime soon.
I used to be the really smart, yet really disruptive student in elementary school. I was disruptive because I was bored as hell at having the same thing repeated over and over again so that the slowest of the slow could barely manage to get a D on their tests.
The earlier years in school were the most awful, because I was too advanced and my teachers insisted I slow down my learning to let the bottom of the barrel catch up. Five years old, can already read and do algebra, being forced to sit through learning the alphabet two letters a day. It felt like it took months, I got bored, I got fidgety, I got punished. I wanted something to challenge my mind. I said so, I got sent to detention.
Keeping me lumped in with all the other kids made my life frustrating, stunted my education, and was very bad for me. I still remember the horrible frustration I would feel in third and fourth grade every time we had to ‘read aloud’ from the book and a couple of kids in the class who already had three or four years to learn it, couldn’t read the word ‘An’ off a printed page. I resented it that I was punished for reading ahead, and I still wish there had been a better solution for me.
Oops, forgot to add that all of my disruptive behavior stopped as soon as I was finally put into a gifted program and was given work to do that I actually found challenging.
Putting me in a lower tier made the problem worse, and my mother had to demand I be tested for the gifted program, but eventually they figured out that my problem was excessive boredom and I’d settle down if given work that was suitable for my level.
I’m not in favor of letting teachers arbitrarily kick kids out of their classes. As a teacher, I am here to tell you that some kids just… get under your skin. Other teachers don’t mind that kid at all, but there’s just something in the chemistry that makes you want to unscrew that ONE kid’s head.
This should be irrelevant. That one kid has as much right to an education as the next kid.
Although I think if we made education a PRIVELIGE instead of a RIGHT, it might work a little better.
On the other hand, this opens up the floodgates to parents who think their kids would be better off out there earning money for the family than they would be in school…
As one of those few students who actually wants to learn, I’d have to say that this process would definately be facilitated if those students who didn’t were sent off somewhere. However, these students do provide some comic relief. Also, with all “perfect” students, pressure from the teachers would be piled on without much of a buffer, so I really do think that it’s not necessarily a bad thing to have a few of these kids. Besides, without them, things would get boring.
monstro is 100% right: kids simply don’t learn and develop at precisely the same pace. Your slow troublemaker in Grade 4 might be a pretty decent student by Grade 8. I knew kids who I thought were as dumb as posts who I later ran into at university, and found they were doing harder courses of study than I was.
I don’t mean to sound like I’m lecturing or flaming, but… there’s already a whiff of the usual Hi-Q Internet Message Board Genius Brigade elitism here you get in any discussion on this topic, where the participants are disproportionately made up of people who claim to have such enormous brains that school held them back, and if it weren’t for the troglodtytes they were forced to share class with they could have had Ph.Ds by the time they were 16. This happens almost every time we have a discussion about this sort of thing, and for that matter when you get this discussion on any newsgroup or message board; everyone seems to have an IQ of 215 and was successfully performing tricky brain surgery in second grade but didn’t have a high GPA because those dumb kids held everything up. The truth is that the great majority of people are not Albert Einstein, and EVERYONE thinks they’re smarter than they really are.
Believe it or not, it IS possible for the children who are not SDMB Brainiac Commandos to learn something and get a lot out of school - even the ones who sometimes have a lot of trouble. School is more than just a boring prison sentence for MIT-bound gearheads; the kids you thought were stupid are A) probably not as stupid as you think, and B) need an education as much as you do. School’s as valuable to them as it is to you. Maybe more so. You don’t have a right to kick other kids out of school because you think you or your child are Wile E. Coyote, Super Genius. Those kids you’re laughing at, Monica, may need professional schooling even MORE than you do.
And I would further assert, albiet with nothing but subjective evidence, that the great majority of bright kids are NOT held up by ordinary schools or bored into bad marks, but use their big brains to excel and learn quite a bit.
RIckJay has a point, in that many people’s additions to this thread involve personal stories. This is not an issue for personal stories. In the new program supported by the Bush Administration called “No Child Left Behind,” many of your desires for our nation’s schools would be addressed. Under this act, as the title implies, we would follow the warm and fuzzy feelings we like to have as Americans. Our nation’s schools would push for every child to pass those standardized proficiency tests we all hated. As such, the lower level students may be brought up, but many may also be brought down. In addition, part of this set of laws would call for entirely new faculties for any school not passing virtually every child. As we know, this kind of program leads to what’s called “Teaching to the tests,” where no higher level thinking is involved, and we wind up with schools full of students earning to think the same way about the same mindless topics.
Moving on…the last big idea was called Goals 2000, in which the first Bush decided that he wanted the USA to surpass the other nations of the world in literacy, science, and mathematics (among other pipe dreams). The problem with this plan goes back to those of you who would like to remove those lower performing or disruptive students from schools. Problem: the reason other countries’ scores and stats are higher than ours is that other countries don’t admit all students to school. Tests are taken, and students are routed either to school, or straight to professions. We allow all students to go to school, test all students, etc…
So, looking at the big picture, we could sacrifice the equality for a better educational SYSTEM. OR, we can sacrifice the system for the sake of equality. I’m sorry to say that it actually does boil down to that. Again, try to remove individual experiences and look at the world picture.
IT’S A QUESTION OF WHAT’S THE PRIORITY, THE COUNTRY OR THE KIDS??? IT MAY SEEM THAT WE NEED WHAT’S BEST FOR THE COUNTRY AT THIS POINT (SEEING WHAT’S GOING ON IN THE WORLD BLAH BLAH BLAH), BUT IT ALSO MAY SEEM THAT THE PRINCIPLES ON WHICH WE RELY TO DISTINGUISH OURSELVES AS AMERICANS ARE WORTH SACRIFICING THE WORLD COMPARISON AND OVERALL EDUCATION PICTURE. HMMMMMM…
I have talked with students and other teachers about this issue. My theory is that some of these students that are misbehaving are simply too emotionally immature to appreciate the opportunity they have. I wonder if we could model a system of education that would allow a student to attend school half a day and then work for at least a couple of hours each day. It would be nice if they could slowly develop more sophisticated skills so that after a couple of years of work-study, they could participate in a challenging and meaningful internship program. They could earn some money and begin to understand why they need to pursue an education.
We had vocational education when I was in high school. I do not think this is the best route. I think we need to allow these kids to become more and more engaged in the educational system as they gain more real-life experiences. Vocational ed had them at work and out of school at 17 or 18. I would like to see a system that provides quality education for young adults. Society sends a message that if you have not completed high school before 19 years of age… you are a loser. I think a high percentage of these young adults would continue to achieve educational goals if we could keep them connected to quality educational institutions for longer periods of time. I believe most of these students would earn diplomas and go on to colleges. There needs to be a critical mass of students involved in this. No stigma, just routine. Some students that have bought into the parent message - “get a diploma, go to college”, do just fine and they should continue. Some students need 3 - 5 years to get a set of experiences that makes them understand the relevance of what is being offered in the way of instruction. Some students need to get a 8 or 10 month dose of a dead-end job to awaken their appreciation of opportunity.
So many students are just incapable of understanding that the decisions they make at 15, 16, and 17 can absolutely wreck their futures. By the time they come to recognize this, it’s too late.